


The mire was deep

by Jayne L (JayneL)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayneL/pseuds/Jayne%20L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>rivkat prompted: "Castiel's reaction when he learns that Sam didn't wait for him to go to the Cage."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The mire was deep

When they return to the Bunker after retrieving Sam from Hell, Dean goes to the kitchen and starts forcefully clattering his way through preparing dinner, Sam goes to his room and locks the door, and Castiel stands in the war room for a few long minutes, torn.

He hesitates again before knocking on Sam's door. "It's me," he says quietly when the soft rustling noises of Sam moving inside come to an abrupt, apprehensive halt. A moment later, the lock clicks, and Castiel lets himself into the room.

During his time spent recovering from Rowena's spell, Castiel came to find Sam's room both comfortable and comforting. It feels claustrophobic now. It smells like old sweat and rank socks, like dried blood and exhausted fear. Having just narrowly escaped the Cage, Castiel doesn't want to be closed in--he doesn't want Sam to be closed in--but he also doesn't want Dean to overhear any argument they might be about to have. Taking a deep breath, he shuts the door behind himself.

Sam has retreated to the far side of the bed where he stands shirtless, holding a tube of antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit that lays open on his desk. Castiel's hands clench at his sides at the sight of the fresh bruises streaking Sam's chest, the abrasions on his knuckles, the crusted blood at the corners of his mouth. He knows full well, as Sam does, that Lucifer didn't have to be physically violent. He knows, as Sam does, that Lucifer made a deliberate choice to leave marks. "Let me heal you."

Sam tongues at his split lip and shakes his head. His gaze is downcast. His fingers are stiff on the tube of ointment; some of his joints are swollen, and there is more dried blood caked around his nail beds.

Castiel reorients his approach. "What you did was foolish."

Sam looks at him hard-eyed, his jaw tight. "You think I don't know that? Hell, you think I didn't know that going in?"

"Then why didn’t you contact me?" Sam stares at him. "I realise my first venture into the Cage didn't turn out as well as either of us would have hoped, but I'm reasonably certain I learned from my mistakes. Even if I hadn't, I'm very certain I would have been a more trustworthy partner in this endeavour than Rowena and Crowley."

"That's not--" Sam shakes his head, looking away again. It's odd to see him so closed-off. In Castiel's experience, that's not usually Sam's way. "Thanks for your concern, Cas, but I think you should go check on Dean now."

"Dean is fine." Castiel is rolling his eyes at himself before he even finishes the sentence. "Dean is working through his trauma from this incident by making hamburgers," he amends, and doesn't miss the very slight, very faint, very brief amusement that flits across Sam's face. "Right now, I'm concerned about you."

"Don't be." When Castiel remains implacable, Sam tosses the ointment back into the kit, then skates one hand through his hair, dragging it away from his face. He winces as the movement jostles his injured fingers. "Look, Cas, I'm not--it's not that I'm not grateful. I sure as hell didn't want to be stuck with Lucifer again, and I'm so, so grateful that you and Dean came to pull my ass out of the fire, even though--" Something shutters in his gaze the moment before he looks away. "Even though I never wanted either of you to go to Hell for me again."

Keeping Dean out of Hell, Castiel understands. But choosing not to enlist a seraph, however far he might have fallen, is nothing more than impracticality and poor strategy. "Sam--"

"I'm just--I'm not good company right now." He forces a short, mirthless laugh. "Too pissed off at my own stupidity."

With a mighty effort, Castiel refrains from saying what he's thinking, which is, 'You should be.' Instead, he asks again, "Why didn't you contact me, Sam?"

"I don't know. I mean," Sam continues grudgingly, forestalling Castiel's immediate objection, "I do know, it's just. It's so dumb. I'm a grown man who's been to Hell and back, literally, more than once, and I don't--I don't want to have to admit to being this naïve."

Castiel waits. He knows too well how stubbornly pride can stick in the throat.

Finally, Sam sighs. His broad shoulders slump. "I wanted to believe there was something good on our side against Amara. That someone good was on the other end of my visions and my prayers, that the hope I was being offered wouldn't inevitably turn to shit." He shakes his head, mouth twisting derisively. "I was having visions--flashbacks--of _Lucifer torturing me_ , and I thought there was a chance they'd lead to something good."

"You wanted your suffering to serve a greater purpose." Castiel asserts. He is on firm footing here, too. "From what I've seen, that's fairly typical of faith."

"But I always do this! I always want to believe there's something more, and there never is. Or, there is, but it's something terrible. Something evil. I don't learn from my mistakes, Cas. I just keep praying, keep hoping, keep lining up to take another kick at the football." Sinking down to sit on the edge of his mattress, he breathes in sharply, one arm curling protectively against what must be cracked ribs. "Working with Rowena and Crowley, using the _Book of the Damned_ , letting Rowena convince me to meet Lucifer alone--all along I just kept thinking: this time's gonna be different. This time, the ends are going to justify the means. This time, I'm gonna be right." Looking down at the smears of blood and dirt ground into his jeans, Sam admits, "That's why I didn't call you."

Castiel crosses the room to stand above him. His grace hums under his skin, aching lightly with the urge to mend and soothe and ease. "That was very arrogant," he says gently, and Sam's snort of laughter turns into a hiss of pain halfway through. Castiel doesn't bother asking again before reaching out and placing one hand on Sam's feverish skin, palm over his collarbone, thumb fitted into the hollow at the base of his throat. Sam gasps at the pulse of grace Castiel sends through his body, knitting fractures and sewing tears.

He leaves his hand where it is when he's finished, waiting for Sam to look up at him. "If I've learned anything about faith, Sam, it's that it is inherently neither arrogant nor naive. We characterise it with our actions."

Sam's brow quirks. Under Castiel's hand, his shoulder shifts in a half-shrug. "Yeah, Cas. That's kind of the problem."

"It doesn't have to be a problem. Stop insisting on making it one." Finally he lifts his hand, lets it fall to rest at his side. Drawing himself up, he summons a faint shred of the air of command he used to inhabit when he knew nothing but the certainty of a united Heaven. With a steady gaze, he fixes its weight squarely on Sam. "Whatever responsibility you feel for releasing the Darkness, I share it. I want to help with any attempt to defeat her, and I have both the knowledge and the skills to do so. For all our sakes--yours, mine, and Dean's--don't act alone again."

Sam blinks up at him. He swallows. "I won't," he says simply, after a beat. "I won't."

Castiel nods once, satisfied, and steps back. The room feels less claustrophobic now. "Are you coming to dinner?"

"I'm gonna take a quick shower first." No longer hemmed in on his bed, Sam pushes himself to his feet and crosses to his closet. "But yeah. Dean'll worry if I don't."

They both know that Dean will worry regardless. He's going to need a conversation, too. All Castiel knows about his connection to Amara is that Dean feels constantly hunted and ashamed because of it; their fresh encounter with Lucifer, and how narrowly they escaped with Sam, will have generated anger and bad memories and shaken confidence. Sitting at Dean's table and eating a homemade hamburger he can't taste properly will be a small start to the conversation, but a start nonetheless. Castiel's certainly not going to open with, 'Not telling me about Amara's persistent overtures to you was foolish.'

He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. "You and your brother," he begins. When he doesn't continue, the noises of Sam rustling through his things stop.

Castiel shakes his head. "I wish you would both stop thinking of yourselves as expendable."

He's through the door and turning towards the kitchen when he hears Sam's quiet, "You too, Cas."

**Author's Note:**

> Father, father, where are you going  
>  O do not walk so fast.  
> Speak father, speak to your little boy  
>  Or else I shall be lost,
> 
> The night was dark no father was there  
>  The child was wet with dew.  
> The mire was deep, & the child did weep  
>  And away the vapour flew. --William Blake, 'The Little Boy Lost', _Songs of Innocence and Experience_


End file.
